they stopped in capetown. my uncle, i learned, had his own very passionate love affair, although brief, in capetown. and then they reached suez in egypt on september 3rd, 1942. now, i should probably give a little background on the war in north africa. historians when they talk about it tend to use metaphors like seesaw, pendulum. it was this peculiar sort of rhythm of war that began in the fall of 1940. mussolini had visions of grandeur, i guess, wanted to ride his white stallion down the streets of cairo. he had trooped in libya when was an italian colony, and he decided to make a play for cairo, attack the british going east. the british attacked right back and went, drove the italians pretty far west into libya at which point hitler realized he really needed to bail out his pal, mussolini, although i don't think he was happy about it. so he sent in irwin rommel, the famous tank commander, along with a bunch of perhapsers, and he effectively drove the british back into egypt. now, when the summer rolls arou